Kensington B

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Kensington B (not to be confused with the other Kensington on the eastern side of Johannesburg) is one of the suburbs of Randburg, now part of greater Johannesburg.

The history of Randburg goes as far back as settlements by Boer pioneers in the 1850s and 1860s. The first farms were Klipfontein, Driefontein, Olievenhoutspoort, and Boskop. These four farms were then sub-divided among the sons of the early settlers. Driefontein, which was the original farm, extended from the northern boundary of Bryanston to the the present Braamfontein, which belonged to one JL Pretorius. In 1886 when he died, the farm was divided among his sons who later sold their portions. A portion of the farm was subsequently bought by the widow of Jacobus Brink of Pretoria. One of the first true Randburgers was her son Daniel Brink, who started farming on a portion of Driefontein in 1906. The portion was so large that it was later sub-divided into the suburbs of Kensington B, Beverley Gardens, Brian Brink and Vandia Grove. Randburg's first windmill - in Milner Street - was erected in 1924 by Daniel Brink and is still in the possession of one of Brink's descendants.

South Africa's first black landscape painter, Moses Tladi (1897-1959), owned land in Kensington B from about 1905, and lived in Pitt Street, not from from Homestead Avenue, until an apartheid-era forced removal in 1956. An interesting article about Moses Tladi can be found at http://www.unisa.ac.za/default.asp?Cmd=ViewContent&ContentID=7232 and one of his pictures can be viewed at http://www.sahistory.org.za/pages/artsmediaculture/gallery/sa-society-of-artists/images/MOSES-TLADI.jpg


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Copyright © 2004-2005, Rodney Jones, rtjones@amethyst.co.za, Randburg, South Africa (Last updated on 27 November 2005)